The Truth About Your Name
It was very easy to name my children when I was single and all of my children where yet-to-be-conceived.
If you’re female, I think you’ll know what I’m talking about.
“I’m going to have two boys and a girl, and they’re going to be named Bailey, L.B. and Isabel.”
Even when people asked about my fictional children’s hypothetical father, I had an answer. “He can have the middle name.”
So, you can imagine my surprise when, actually pregnant, I told the SO my idea for our baby boy’s name, and he said, “no.”
Sixteen years of planning, and it all came crashing down with one “no.”
After my disappointment/confrontation with reality, the SO and I began the baby naming hunt/game in earnest. For me, I think this process is best described by a woman I met at a baby shower: “I pick names and my husband shoots them down.”
I read a baby book.
I read a baby book with 10,000 names in it.
I highlighted my favorite names and created a working list.
I shared my working list with the SO via a Google doc that we could both edit.
The SO chose to yell things out as we drove or shopped at Target. (He didn’t seem to get the memo about my baby book or Google doc.)
It went something like this:
“Rock!”
“What? Am I going to hit a rock? Is there something in the road?”
“No, what do you think about Rock for the baby?”
“As a cheap toy?” I said. “A nursery theme?”
“As a name.”
“No.”
LeTron, Shogun and Lightning all came to my attention this way.
For the record, I am not someone who could own a cool, alt baby name. Some people fit with an Apple. I do not.
A hip baby name would only cause me deep shame and judgment every time I checked in at the pediatrician’s office or had something monogrammed.
“What would you like on the towels again?”
“Toaster.”
“Toaster?”
“You know, like the Instagram filter.”
And the idea of standing in front of all the other mothers with my non-cloth-diaper-wearing son while the nurse called out “Lysol” or “Legume” is too much for me.
For awhile, I was convinced my child would be named Samurai because the SO and I couldn’t agree on anything, and, at least, as a friend pointed out, I could shorten “Samurai” to “Sam.”
I vividly remember being very pregnant, driving around and crying thinking about the years ahead spent introducing Samurai to his teachers and coaches. (All of whom would be very disapproving.)
So, when, four days before I went into labor, the SO suggested “Benjamin,” I jumped on it.
Before that moment, Benjamin had not been in my top 5 or even my top 25. But, by then, I would have gone with anything to avoid a Samurai or LeTron (LeTronica for a girl).
This is also why I really think the SO played me for the long con. A note to the men out there: if you want to win the baby name game, just hold out any and all non-absurd names until your partner is in labor. Darth, Leppard and Gandolf sound a lot more appealing when you think your alternatives are Drapery and Hopscotch.
And while Benjamin might not have been in the top 25 names during my pregnancy or the first 33 years of my life, it quickly rose in the ranks as my favorite name once it was attached to my favorite little person.
I fell in love with the name as I fell in love with my baby, and now, I can’t imagine wanting a Bailey or L.B. instead.
This is also why you don’t tell people your baby names. Nobody loves Esther or Grayson in theory, but everyone loves it once it’s attached to 10 pounds of cuddly, squirmy baby.
So, getting back to my title, the truth is that your name might not have been your parent’s first choice at first, but it probably is now.
“We always like the name ‘Benjamin,’” is a far better story than, “I used to curse your father and cry thinking you’d be called ‘Samurai.’”
Photo by mwookie.
Discount Directions
I love some discount shopping. When I can find a light-up skeleton at Walgreen's for $5.99, I'm a happy girl. (And some people think I'm difficult to please ...)
The obvious perk of discount shopping is the low prices because, let's face it, it's not like you're really paying for much else. Organization? Not so much, but if I said I didn't enjoy digging through piles off-brand sweat pants for the one pair without a spelling error, I'd be lying. Customer service? Very much depends. It's better not to ask questions if you can avoid it. Quality? My light-up skeleton is holding up well, but it's always a crap shoot.
A few weeks ago, I wasn't even offered bags for my merchandise as I picked up Halloween party decor. (This is probably punishment for not being more concious of my carbon footprint and carrying my own reusable totes everywhere, but there are times a girl forgets.) I placed my items on the counter (creepy burlap tie included because, well, it was there, and it was cheap) to check out; the woman working in the store scanned each item. Then she handed each item back to me to put in the cart sans bag. It was a little weird, but when you're at Garden Ridge, you roll with Garden Ridge.
Anyway, all of this is leads me to one of my favorite aspects of the bargain-loving lifestyle -- incoherent instructions. If you're buying way, way below retail, it's generally accepted that you're going to have to figure out how everything works by yourself, and I'm fine with that. It's usually when directions are included that things get a little fuzzier. For example:
If I hadn't know what I bought, this would be confusing as all get out. (And am I crazy, or does this look a little bit dirty? Gross, maybe?)
The next set of guidelines I found included written instructions that were in English, not as common as you would think, but I still found the drawings disturbing.
There's something really icky about this one to me -- and, yes, I also think this looks dirty; go ahead and judge me. (I don't deal well with things that look disjointed or bulbous. It's a thing.) I'm also unsure as to why it is necessary to tell me to "watch the set eerie glow." If the goal was to be creeped out on Halloween, I succeeded only by opening the box on this one.
Would you have ever guessed that the first set of directions go with this light-up Zombie? (I never said I shopped for normal stuff.)
Yes, that drawing depicts an arm clutching a beating heart on a cord. Our second set of directions actually shows this:
Because, you know, why draw the hand from the front -- where it actually looks like a hand -- when you can draw it from the side?
In retrospect, I'm not really sure the problem is with where I'm shopping so much as it is with what I'm shopping for, but I'm going to save self-reflection for another day.
Happy Halloween!
A Town Not Big Enough For The Both Of Us
I have a Kindle Fire. (It’s hardly big news, but all stories haveto start somewhere.) I think the SO expected me to use my Kindle Fire to readall the time, get into RSS feeds, keep up with news from all over the web,etc., etc. Instead, I quickly developed an addiction for Bejeweled.
(“Addiction” isn’t an exaggeration here. When I findsomething new, it’s all I want to do. So far, the only thing this particularpersonality trait has done for me is allow me to get through lots of episodesof television in a short period of time. I might need to work on my concept of“purpose.”)
When I was done with Bejeweled, I moved on to various hiddenobjects/puzzle games. (I am a complete nerd.) However, it was hard to findanything that gave me the same satisfaction as Bejeweled – until I discoveredThe Oregon Trail.
Unlike The Oregon Trail of my youth, which involved way toomuch dysentary and fording of rivers, The Oregon Trail app lets you build atown out West and make it prosper. You get to build houses, businesses, addlivestock, plant crops … basically, a lot of incredibly boring stuff designedfor 10-year-olds that I seem to find fascinating.
To say that I got into my town would be an understatementakin to saying that the Amy Poehler/Will Arnett split was mildly upsetting. (Ifthose two can’t make it work, I don’t know if the rest of us have a chance.Can’t they stay together for America? Seriously.)
I worked on my town all the time. I cleared all the landpossible to clear. I built mansions. I had every business available, includingthe special edition town hall and a prospecting cart. I occasionally ignored myboyfriend for my town.
“Something, something, something,” SO says.
“Yeah, sounds good,” I’d say while staring down at my KindleFire.
“Something, something, something.”
“Uh-huh,” I’d say, while thinking, “If I can just collectfrom the big log cabins two more times, I can add another telegraph office.”
“It’s your town again, isn’t it?”
“Huh?” (Thinking: “How did I run out of energy so quickly?”)
“That’s what I thought.”
I made it to level 91 on The Oregon Trail. I don’t think anysane person is supposed to do that. I had a $1,000,000 fake dollars stored inmy Trail bank account. I was out of control.
Then, my Kindle Fire died. It stopped holding a charge, andI had to ship it back to Amazon headquarters. Was I worried about my books ormy many, many apps? No. I was worried about my town. What would happen to myprogress? What would become of my houses and the black sheep I won? (You can’tpurchase a black sheep. You can only win one. I’m sure you can all see mydilemma.)
Well, sure enough, when the new Kindle Fire arrived, therewas no town, and that’s when the SO and I had a talk I’m sure every couple hasat some point in their relationship.
“Well, it’s gone,” I said.
“I know that meant a lot to you?” the SO said.
“It’s all gone.”
“I’m sorry?”
“And you know what,” I said. “I don’t think I’m going torebuild. It was a good run, but I just don’t think I have the energy to gothrough it again.”
I’d tell you what the SO said next, but I couldn’t understandhim through the explosion of laughter.
The Newest Member Of The Family
This is the newest member of the household, Gilly (a.k.a. the Gilly monster). She's decided she's not a fan of the flash on my camera, hence the closed eyes.
Yes, she is named for this Gilly.
There are three primary reasons for this:
1. My great, great love of Kristen Wiig. Even if this is one of her less popular characters, I'm still a fan.
2. Both Gillys have similar unruly hair.
3. When we discipline Gilly, the SO and I can do Will Forte impressions.
Inappropriate With A Dash Of Bad Timing
I don’t always have the best timing. I tend to fall in love with new restaurants just before they go out of business, arrive at boutiques during the 30-minute window the owner has gone for lunch and discover listings for events two days after they happened.
Usually, my poor timing is just inconvenient. On other occasions, it’s downright awkward.
Last summer, I took in a cat that I found in the woods behind the SO’s house. You might remember her.* She was declawed, skinny and nearly hairless, so I gave her a name that I thought was befitting of the time we would be spending together trying to get her well.
At the time, the SO and I already had two dogs and a cat, and he made it clear we would not be adding to the menageries. (The SO has to draw the hard line on pets with me. Otherwise, we would have a zoo.) A couple of potential new homes for her fell through, and the days she was supposed to stay with me turned into weeks.
In the middle of July, after months of having my house on the market, I decided to rent it out. I placed the Craig’s List ad and expected for it to take some time. Instead, I had three couples ready to sign a lease within 48 hours. Not wanting to waste time, I decided to move out as fast as I could. This amped up moving schedule also meant that I needed to find a new foster home for my rescued kitty ASAP.
A very kind friend helped me find a foster family. All I had to do was run the cat to a particular vet for her second round of shots. (I mention this only so that my vet doesn’t think I was cheating on him. The other vet had a relationship with the animal rescue service.)
I didn’t realize the vet I was seeing required appointments, so I got there only to find out that they couldn’t see me for a few hours. I probably could have called first, but considering my aversion to the phone, I obviously didn’t. Not wanting to stress the cat out with too much travel, I left her with the vet’s office until I could come back for the appointment. Also, I had been keeping one of those plastic collars on the cat to help her hair grow back, but I decided to take it off for our vet visit.
When I came back and they handed me the cat, I saw that she had rubbed off the hair where she would have had eyebrows if cats had eyebrows. (That plastic collar wasn’t cruel after all for anyone who might have judged me.)
“What happened here?” I said.
“That’s pretty bad,” the veterinary assistant said. “Your cat might be a self-mutilator.”
“The cat might be a what?”
“A self-mutilator. It’s a type of anxiety disorder. It’s very rare, but it does happen.”
Thinking of the Xanax in my purse at the time, I knew you couldn’t give a cat an anxiety disorder, but I still felt kind of guilty. “An anxiety disorder?” I said.
“Have you noticed anything strange about her?”
I suppose I had been too distracted by her near-hairless state and love of rubbing up against my face to notice anything else.
“How much does the cat sleep?” she said.
At that moment, I realized that I never saw the cat sleep. I had been taking care of an anxiety-ridden, insomniac cat for four weeks and never noticed? Now my guilt was more akin to shame.
“Not much,” I said.
“Yep, it’s probably the anxiety,” she said. “We’ll just put her on some meds, and it should help out.”
After an examination by the vet, who confirmed the anxiety diagnosis, I took the cat’s prescription and was on my way. My next stop was to meet the cat’s new foster family in the parking lot of a local movie theater.
So, there I was, standing in the parking lot of a strip mall (most likely wearing yoga pants covered in dog hair and a torn t-shirt) with a self-mutilating cat and a bottle of kitty Prozac when the cat’s new foster parents got out of the car. I handed the cat over and told them all about our adventure at the vet.
“Thank you so much for helping me out. I really appreciate it,” I said. “Is there anything else I can tell you?”
“I think we’ve got it,” the woman said, “but what’s her name?”
“This is going to seem really inappropriate,” I said. It had been a big week in pop culture news. “But I’ve been calling her Amy Winehouse.”
"Ah."
(She was in rehab at my house. I thought it was fitting. Then Amy Winehouse died tragically, and even though the foster family was very kind about it, I still felt like an incredibly insensitive person. )
That day, I sent off a self-mutilating, anti-depressant-taking, nearly-hairless cat named Amy Winehouse to a new foster family three days after Amy Winehouse died.
It is a day that will forever be marked by shame.
*Amy Winehouse really is the name that stuck. I just never took to Buscemi. The above exchange actually happened.
Current Signs Of My Internet Addiction*
1. I don't just visit People.com too frequently, I hit refresh when I'm on People.com because I feel that strong a need for the latest info on the Robert Pattinson/Kristen Stewart cheating scandal. Not only do I not know Robert Pattinson or Kristen Stewart, I don't even like the Twilight movies.
2. I begin most of my sentences with, "Well, on Pinterest ..." When I'm not on Pinterest, I'm doing fun things like pasting wallpaper to the side of an old dresser, making concoctions with shredded chicken from the crock pot and removing the den doors. (Yes, I physically took down the doors to the den.) Last night, I washed banana out of my hair after reading about homemade hair masks on, what else, Pinterest.
3. Perhaps of greatest concern, I'm newly obsessed with memes. (At present, my favorites are "drunk" Irish baby and "Just describe your lunch to me!") I Googled how to put text on images in Photoshop. A lot of my evenings involve finding photos of the dogs, putting phrases on them and emailing said photos to the SO who is all of two feet away on the couch. If he doesn't pick up his iPhone in the evening, it's most likely my fault because he's tired of getting a notifcation when I send him Carat and Cassidy memes. I should also mention that I'm not good at this.
I'd say that I should find a hobby, but I think that was my original intention with Pinterest ...
* "Current signs" because it's not like this is a new phenomenon.
Disillusioned DIY: 4 Fun Pinterest Projects & 1 Craft To Avoid
I have a Pinterest problem. It's not like I really needed another reason to be on the Internet, but the universe still gave me one. It has made me want to cook a lot more, but my house is also starting to look like a bizarre "trash to treasure" experiment gone mad.
Since I don't volunteer or help the community in other ways, I thought I could at least help someone out there from drowning in pins and boards. Here are a few of my successes and failures in the DIY realm*:
I had a hard time believing this bread was actually going to turn out, but it did. I am now obsessed. I've made four loaves, and we've already eaten two. Admittedly, we like to add cheese at my house, but it's been quite the tasty adventure. The SO thinks I'm a domestic goddess, and my new Le Creuset oven (not a cheap investment, but worth it) looks really pretty in the kitchen even when I'm not using it. I am very pleased.
Despite my rather perilous learning curve, this tutorial was incredibly helpful. I've made about seven of these. (Wow, this is starting to sound like I have a lot more time on my hands than I do.) Here are a couple of suggestions:
A) Do not buy traditional Christmas lights or the lights from Big Lots. You will spend too much time putting those lights in the bottles. I actually ended up pushing each individual light into the bottle and had an incredibly sore hand. Buy LED string lights. They are thin and much easier to work with.
B) If you're don't think too much about science like me, you might have an urge to clean your wine bottles right after drilling the hole. Don't. The wine bottle will be very hot from the drilling, and what happens to hot glass when it comes into contact with cold water? It cracks. Fooled by the laws of nature yet again.
3. Coin Jewelry
This was another handy tutorial. If I was you, I'd actually follow all of the instructions. Instead of stabilizing my drilling with a wood block, I decided to use a phone book because it was nearby. This was not the best idea. Still, the holes were easy to drill, and I can finally do something with all of the foreign money I've saved from trips throughout the years.
I put some coins on a key ring instead of a jewelry ring, including one coin each from Japan, Thailand and Europe to represent the around-the-world trip a BFF and I took in 2003. It makes for a far more elegant souvenir than I expected.
Sometimes the fact that I can't stand clutter runs afoul of my Southern sentimentality. On my first date with the SO, we were given free t-shirts by the concert venue. The t-shirts are hideous. They look like hypercolor without actually being hypercolor and advertise a local car dealership. The only sizes available were large and extra large. Nothing is attractive about these t-shirts. (Stuff like this happens when your first date is to a Def Leppard concert.) However, when the SO tried to throw out his t-shirt, it spawned a long conversation, the crux of which was, "How can you even think about getting rid of something that represents such a special day in our lives?"
I lost this argument because of the ugly factor, and it spawned a DIY t-shirt projects hunt. Enter the scarf. While this isn't my favorite project of all time, I do like it. Plus, the red circles come from the aforementioned t-shirt so I feel like I have a piece of that day without pouting that my boyfriend won't wear a Toyota t-shirt when we go out and about.
Now, even though I don't really like to sew, sometimes a complete "no sew" project looks too ragged to me. While I didn't sew the loops that make up the bulk of the scarf, I did sew the bits of t-shirt that connect the loops for a somewhat neater look. (Looking back at the original post, I now realize how much prettier her scarf was than mine. Sigh.)
5. It Is Not Easy To Cut Glass At Home
I feel like I've said this 1,000 times by now and people probably wonder why I'm oddly bitter towards glass crafts, but this undertaking was one of the biggest pains I've ever encountered. Take a moment to look at these glasses:
Now let me mention the 50 broken wine bottles I threw out in various pieces to get here. I saw this video and thought I was set. Clearly, I was not. Also, these are my three best examples, and you can see that they're not completely even.
To think that I did all of this to avoid paying for a $29.99 set of the exact same glasses makes me question my decision-making skills. (The scorer was $25.) If you value your sanity, and the unbroken skin on your hands, leave this one alone.
* I never claimed I was a photographer.
In Which I Audition For A Reality Show
I don’t know why I get the e-mails that I get. Some of them seem too good to be true – secret shopper opportunities and large Target gift cards included. Others are press releases that have little to do with me (“U.S. Prepares Secret Charges Against Dictator X”). Some are entirely in Arabic.
However, when a little e-mail popped up in my inbox a few months ago asking if my home was cluttered and I needed help, I decided to respond.
I disdain clutter. I am a neat person. We have known some hoarders, so my mother is the anti-hoarder. This is a trait she has passed on to me. For everything that comes in, something goes out, and the only thing I’m sentimental about is cards and letters. If you come over and don’t see something you gave me, save yourself the pain and don’t ask, but know I appreciated the thought.
Unfortunately, someone I care very much about doesn’t worry about clutter as much as I do. When you throw in the fact that we both work from a home that’s less than 1,000 square feet, well, there can be issues.
I wrote a couple of sentences back to the e-mail. The sender wanted pictures. Within five minutes of sending the photos, this e-mail arrived, “We want to talk to you.”
We chatted on the phone, I sent more photos and I got another e-mail reading, “We’d like to send a producer to your house. Does tomorrow work?”
I wasn’t sure whether or not to be thrilled (free stuff for the house!) or ashamed (I’m a reality TV producer’s dream).
Also, I’d done all of this while the SO was out of town for work, so I had to call him and tell him what I’d been up to. You know that phone call, when you tell your SO that you’ve been scheming to have his house made over (TV crew included) while he went away for the weekend? Pretty standard stuff.
“Have you heard of the Style Network, honey?”
“I guess,” he said.
“How do you feel about being on it?”
When the producer came over to do our interview and take a tour of the house, she and I had a 45-minute interview. She and the SO talked for 10 minutes.
Beyond the “how do you feel about the clutter?” questions, there was “Is this the man you want to family with?” “How would you feel about someone else coming in and telling you what to do with your space?” and “Is this a deal breaker for you?”
That’s when I had another realization: I was the source of drama for this television production. They either expected me to argue with the SO about the house or argue with the organizing team about my house. I was their Omarosa.
I could complain, but whom are we kidding? If someone is going to bring drama to a housing renovation, it’s going to be me. I can bring drama to a lunch for the mute. I like to think of it as passion, but I could be wrong.
We took two and a half hours of footage, I sent more photos and there were lots of phone conversations, but unfortunately, we didn’t make the cut. In some ways, it’s nice to know people need more help than I do. In other ways, I really, really wanted free stuff.
Also on the plus side, I appreciate that the SO continues to put up with my shenanigans, and on the negative one, there’s a tape out there somewhere with a whole lot of me bitching about binders and photo equipment.
* This is not one of the photos I sent of my house. I don't do plants.
"Exercise" -- The Laurel Way
In what might not have been one of the wisest decisions, I went in search of fitness programs to go with the Wii on Monday. The SO loves his Mario brothers, but since I prefer games where you don’t die (because what’s the fun in that – especially when you lack good hand-eye coordination), our Wii games are an odd mix of action-packed games that require You Tube video walk-throughs for secret level access and those designed for five-year-olds.
It’s pretty easy to figure out my games – Family Feud, Haunted House, Mickey Paints, and my favorite, Guilty Party. I had “The Malgrave Incident,” which is a puzzle and hidden objects game, but after solving it twice, I decided to trade it in.
In case you’re wondering, Guilty Party allows me to solve mysteries about a missing walrus by questioning witnesses, gathering cards and completing tasks like following the suspect’s eyes with a flashlight. I can play for hours. (Plus, until L.A. Noir comes out for Wii, this is the closest I can get to cracking cases from my sofa.)
We also have the Wii fit game, but due to an unfortunate reading of the E-bay listing, we don’t have the board to go with it.
After eating half a sackful of Krystals on Monday and watching three episodes of Supernatural in a row, I thought that it might not be the worst idea to add some kind of fitness element to the Wii.
I started at Walmart, where I learned that balance boards are $100. That’s a big investment for something that I might only use once, so I moved on to Game Stop in the hopes of finding a pre-owned one.
As an aside, my favorite part of going to Game Stop is that the staff there never knows what to do with me. I’m usually in my yoga clothes that I don’t practice yoga in, and they always ask if I’m looking for my kid first. When they learn that I’m shopping for myself, they tend to get really confused and leave me alone. After the “I want to solve crimes with my Wii” conversation from a few months ago, there’s one guy who avoids me like the plague.
There were no pre-owned balance boards, so I started digging through the used products bin and discovered Personal Trainer 2. At $40, it seemed reasonable, and I went to check out.
While I was at the register, I asked about whether or not pre-owned balance boards ever came in. That’s when the Game Stop employee pointed out, “You know this game is for Playstation, right?”
I did not. (This might be another reason the Game stop staff hates me.)
He and I went back to the bin, but all I could find was a used copy of Personal Trainer Version One for Wii. It was really beat up, and now that I knew Personal Trainer 2 was $40, why would I pay $40 for Version 1?
All of this is to explain how I ended up bringing home the UFC Trainer game. Do I know anything about the UFC? No. However, the game was brand new, promised a work out and cost $30. I figured, “What they hey?”
The SO was confused, to say the least.
So far, in my two attempts to play the game, I barely made it through the four-minute fitness test, and I’ve been yelled at by some guy named Chase or Tito for not getting my jabs in fast enough.
It’s not looking good.
In a few months, I could be able to take you in any fight. More likely, I will be trying to pawn off my “awesome” game at a “great price.”
The lesson: This is why I only spend $30 on my impulse purchases – especially when there’s a Zaxby’s on the way home from Game Stop.
Landlords Are Crazy
From the time I rented my first apartment at 19 until about six months ago, I operated under a basic assumption: all landlords are crazy.
Apartment landlords, or any complex run by a company or management firm, maybe not so much. However, when you rented a house, it seemed to me that all landlords were nuts.
The landlord of that apartment I rented at 19 had a house he divided into an upstairs apartment, a main level that was kept in tact “for the family to visit” and a basement apartment. We basically lived above a creepy museum, and my landlord liked to work on the house shirt-less (at 70), made snide comments about boys coming over and let his son-in-law use the back of the house for his “art” at any given time – which usually translated to the hours of 10:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m.
I did not like that man.
I had another landlord that tried to keep our security deposit because we didn’t clean the front of the garbage disposal.
Yet, none of these compared to the landlord I had to take to small claims court. He changed the lease after we signed it (not something to do to a lawyer’s daughter), and one of its new clauses included charging us tenants a $50 fee for any repair done on the house.
We discovered this on the day we asked him to send over a plumber because two out of the three toilets weren’t working. (Little known fact: I can fix most toilet issues. I have two sisters; you learn. Even in the 300-year old house where I shared one bathroom with four other girls, we only had one plumbing issue in a year.)
I was not pleased, and seeing how we had not approved the revised lease, my roommate and I decided to move out nine days after moving in. At the time, the landlord said he was fine with that and agreed to return our security deposit and 21 days worth of the first month’s rent.
Three months and no check later, I filed papers at the D.C. courthouse.
I got my money back, but moving in and out of a house in the span of nine days isn’t something you get over quickly.
I had one landlord I adored. “This is my investment property,” Peter said. “Please keep it nice for me.”
When I signed the lease at his (gorgeous) house, and his dog lay down at my feet, we were both sold.
“She’s a very good judge of character,” he said, referring to the dog. “I think you’re supposed to be in this house.”
Based on the original Picassos in the house, I also don’t think he worried too much about money, so Peter tended not to get too involved in our affairs. He even helped me look for a job. When he sold the same house a year later for double what he paid, there were no security deposit issues. Everyone was happy.
Apart from my beloved Peter, I’ve had many other landlords over the years, and they all led me to the same conclusion, landlords = crazy.
He was the one shining exception to my rule.
So, you can imagine how difficult it was when I became a landlord this past August. By my own rules, I’m now in the ranks of the crazy. (This one’s a whole different kind of crazy than the weird, quirky, medicated categories I already fall into.)
In addition to sometimes staying up at night wondering how my hardwood floors are faring, I also worry that my tenants think I’m nuts. (Who worries about how their tenants feel about them? Crazy insecure people, I know.)
I understand a little more of the landlord crazy. I wonder how my new cast iron sink is doing without me. I hope the washing machine is being treated well. I think about chipping paint.
But I also try to give my tenants their space and recognize that they are paying for a place to live, after all.
Hopefully I’ll figure out the balance. But if you ever catch me complaining about the grime on the garbage disposal, I expect a friendly reminder about the small versus the big things in life.
In Which The Dogs Question That Whole "Pack Leader" Thing
Unfortunately, last night was another night for deadly storms in Alabama. My thoughts are with the families who lost loved ones and homes.
You might think that you would eventually get used to the sound of weather sirens in the night, but I think most people who live in tornado alleys would second that it's always an unnerving and unsettling phenomenon.
Since I live in a house with a concrete slab foundation, our "place of safety" (the real term if you don't live in inclement-weather-prone parts of the country) is the only room in the house without windows -- otherwise known as the guest bathroom. It is also the only bathroom with a tub, so it's where the dogs get their baths. Whether it's claustrophobia or bad memories, neither pooch was too crazy about the idea of getting in there with a bunch of fleece blankets, pillows and the Kindle fire at 3:30 in the morning.
When they realized that they we would be sleeping in there until the tornado warning ended around 4:30, or I knew from local meteorologists that the worst part of the storm was out of Jefferson County, they did not seem pleased.
I might be projecting too much, but I do think my authority is in question now. There's just something in their eyes that seems to say, "The lady has finally lost it."
* Of course, I don't mean to make light of what anyone suffered last night. For those affected by last night's storms, the Salvation Army has announced feeding stations, and I'm sure that the Red Cross will be coordinating donations.
What I Have Learned Watching TV With The SO
The man in my life is into zombies. From what I can gather, this is somewhat normal. At my Halloween party two years ago, at least half the men showed up dressed as zombies. Zombies seem to have snuck into our lives over the last few years. (And please don’t get me started on what it’s been like since The Walking Dead premiered. I think it’s a fine show, but six episodes and then you take off for a year? Can we really call that a season? Really?)
Then again, I watch Lifetime and shows where women talk to dead people, so I’m sort of in a glass house here. While I don’t mind the zombies, I can’t say that I love them. The flesh-eating thing just doesn't really grab me.
Anyway, based on my recent viewings of these kinds of post-catastrophe shows/movies, there are a few tips and tricks I’ve picked up for surviving/dealing with aliens, zombies and danger at every turn.
1. There are absolutely no rules about who lives and who dies. Don’t even try to figure it out. If you’re popular and young, it actually seems like you’re more likely to be a goner. Also, your death will be incredibly unpleasant. If you have any sort of pre-existing anxiety issues, be sure to raid the local pharmacy for Xanax as soon as the looting begins.
2. One member of your vagabond group of survivors is psychotic, plans to sacrifice you to save him or herself or will betray you. It is never the uglies or dirtiest member of your group, despite their appearance and cryptic comments. Trust is going to be hard.
3. It is not a good idea to capture a zombie/alien/freak so that you can study the creature and try to figure out how to overcome its kind, yadda, yadda, yadda. One member of the team will die, and it’s usually the one who had the idea to study the creature in the first place, or the person best equipped to figure out anything science-y.
4. Any captured creature will also most likely possess some kind of mind control abilities, so, well, you’re just kind of f*&%ed there, and seeing as you’re already f&%$ed, why invite more trouble?
5. If you are in need of medical attention and find a doctor, don’t ask, “What kind of doctor are you?” If you don’t know already, or the information hasn’t been volunteered, the answer is always “vet.” Ignorance is bliss here, especially seeing as you won’t have any other options.
6. Hope the catastrophe/supernatural takeover happens while you’re wearing good shoes. Long journeys and lots of walking are, for some reason, crucial to your survival. I’d vote for finding the loon in the neighborhood with a panic room or bomb shelter and waiting it out, but apparently I’d be in the minority there.
7. Having sex to escape your feelings about the end of the world is never a good idea. You’ll either end up with a jerk who is also “helping out” all of the other ladies in your motley crue or with the most inconvenient pregnancy ever. (Please see #6 and #5 as it will be much harder for you to walk while pregnant, and your baby will inevitably be delivered by a vet.)
What happened to the good old days when shows were set in bars and coffee shops? There was so much less to worry about then, unless you were Norm and had that nagging Vera to deal with.
My Hands Are Just Too Small
According to family folklore, when my grandmother didn’t want to do things, she always said, “but my hands are too small.”
As soon as I found this out, I adopted the phrase as my very own and blamed it on genetics. Learn to use the lawnmower? My hands are too small. Time to help move the refrigerator across the room? My hands are too small. Get a ladder and reach the highest shelf? My hands are too small.
(By now, you’ve probably noticed a theme here, and that theme is manual labor.)
I’ve gotten over my issues with lawnmowers and ladders, but I still find plenty of sweat-inducing tasks to duck out of with my grandmother’s infamous phrase.
There’s no time my aversion to “work” rears its ugly head as much as it does when I’m moving.
I don’t like the packing process. I either find ways to reminisce about every single thing I’m putting in boxes – “Oh my gosh, do you remember when we took this picture outside of Graceland” – grossly slowing down the process, or, when I’m tired of looking at boxes, I go to another default mode – “Can’t we just throw it away?”
I have thrown away more pots, plant stands and random papers than any one human being should have a right to. When I left Chicago, I threw away a pot that still had food in it because I didn’t want to clean it or pack it. (Lazy, thy name is Laurel.)
Yes, I realize environmentalists all over the world are shuddering right now in disgust.
If it’s not the packing, it’s the lifting. (I gave up on driving the van 10 years ago after having to take a U-Haul truck through Washington, D.C. during rush hour.)
Those boxes are so heavy, and there are always more of them. Six years ago I started hiring people just to carry my boxes to whatever vehicle I’d decided on for transport (which I usually made my dad drive). Unfortunately, that also brought out a side of myself that I didn’t like.
“A water break already?”
“Is that all you can carry?”
“Is there a reason you’re just leaning against the wall right now?”
Paying by the hour did not make me a nice person.
In the moving world, there’s only one option for me, and that’s professional movers. I let them do it all – the packing, the driving, the unloading. It’s like a dream. And I can honestly say it’s one of the few checks I never mind writing.
Thanks to my movers, I hope that next weekend (when I move out of my house and officially become a landlord – eek!) will be as stress-free as moving can possibly be.
Of course, I’d like to help out the movers as much as I can, but there’s just this one little problem with my hands being so small and all.
The Curious Case Of The Found Pants
Like most kids, I enjoyed my mystery series, with Encyclopedia Brown being at the top of the list. (It was in the ice cubes the whole time!)
Well, I enjoyed most mystery series. Nancy Drew was an exception. When my mom handed me my first Nancy Drew book, The Secret of the Old Clock, I remember looking at the cover art – which was of a girl kneeling next to a clock with a document next to it – and thinking, “There’s a will in the clock. Done.” I never read past page four, and I never picked up another Nancy Drew novel. Truthfully, I was a little insulted. (Insulted by the series, not my mom.)
I also liked to watch Alfred Hitchcock Presents on Nick at Nite, so I preferred my mysteries with unexpected twists – murder victims that became feed on the farm didn’t bother me at all.
And, thanks to my grandmother’s love of Murder, She Wrote, my favorite murder giveaway goes something like this:
“I can’t believe poor Mrs. Winters was shot to death.”
“I never said anything about Mrs. Winters being shot. How could you know that? Unless …”
[Insert slow clap.] “Well, I guess you’re onto me now, aren’t you?” Or, for the more sympathetic criminals, there were doe eyes and, “She was going to ruin me Jessica! Don’t you understand? She was going to ruin me!”
As an adult or child, I never get into Sherlock Holmes (unless he is being played by Robert Downey, Jr. – another story for another day). I want a chance to figure out a mystery, and if I have to know obscure 18th century ceramic patterns and cigar bands from India to solve the crime, I’m just not interested.
I will, however, watch most anything loosely-based on Sherlock Holmes – House (until they got rid of Cameron and ruined it for me), The Mentalist and Psych included. (Hugh Laurie, Simon Baker and James Roday may, or may not, have something to do with that.)
While I also like to play armchair detective when it comes to the news (“The killer is obviously a white male with Mommy issues”), I prefer not to go looking for mysteries in my own life. As a child, yes, I was all about lost money or old wills or treasure, but as an adult, I find the daily hunt for my missing keys to be enough of an extracurricular mental challenge.
This is only one of the many reasons I don’t like it when strange things occur around my house. These days, I have no need for secret admirers, long-lost relatives or neighbors trying to stuff rugs in the backs of their cars late at night. A quiet, peaceful home works just fine for me.
So, to whoever left their pants outside my door over the weekend – stop it! I don’t want to consider the possibilities of how your pants got there (ew), why you were pants-less on my property (more ew) or why you picked my house of all places, to gallivant. (The pants incident is still very jarring for me, so I’ve kind of run out of words for the whole thing. Hence, for you unfortunate reader, “gallivant.”)
As far as I’m concerned, clothes belong on people, and if anyone is going to leave clothes around my house, he or she is going to at least be someone I know.
Whoever you are, oh mysterious provider of pants, please find another stoop for your leftovers. This particular armchair detective has enough to worry about with her car keys and finding that tax form I tried to file last week.
The Laurel Tour Of Homes
The Top 5 Things I'm Excited To Do On My Alma Mater Weekend, #2: Revisit my old residences.
I am one of those people who really likes to visit places she used to live. And, yes, I also stand there and say, “Everything seems so small now!” [Read more]
Laurel, The Very Bad Volunteer
When I was a sophomore in high school, a friend and I decided to volunteer with a local, health-related non-profit. (I’d like to say it’s because we were moved by a presentation during one of our school’s “development days” – when we were supposed to learn more about ourselves and the community, or something like that – but it probably had more to do with the fact that sophomore year was the time people started talking about “college applications” and “extracurricular activities” and “standing out.” Also, in fairness, I should probably only implicate myself in the resume-building motive. My friend was probably much more pure-hearted.)
Anyway, the volunteer job we ended up with involved delivering meals to homebound patients. And while this job probably sounds easy enough, we were pretty terrible at it. I blame two primary culprits:
- My complete lack of direction in neighborhoods I’d never visited before and
- Naked people.
We usually only had four or five meals to deliver each Saturday, and I really don’t think more than two ever made it to their intended destination. I also think we were pretty liberal with our definition of “lunch time.”
You see, as a newly-minted driver it turns out that I was pretty good at driving in Mountain Brook and going to and from my high school. Shockingly, most of the meals we were supposed to deliver were not 1. In the suburb of Mountain Brook or 2. Next to my high school.
In the dark ages, armed only with a paper map of Birmingham, we did our best, but I’m afraid our best was sorely lacking.
“Which exit do we take again?” I said.
“Greensprings,” my friend said. “I think.”
“You think?”
“It could be Green Valley. I’m not sure.”
Without a doubt, I’d usually miss both exits, and even if I found the right one, the side streets after that were nightmares. Many a volunteer run ended with me in near tears saying, “Are we ever going to get home?”
Unfortunately for the poor woman in charge of volunteers, each run also tended to wrap up with the return of at least one undelivered lunch.
Even without the trauma of navigation, I probably wouldn’t have lasted long as volunteer because of the latter aforementioned issue – naked people.
When we finally did find a house or apartment, my friend and I took turns going in to deliver the meals. (Someone had to stay in the car and try to get a head start on how we were going to get to our next destination.)
After knocking at one house, I heard a “come in” and went through the front door.
“Hi,” I said. “I have the meal you requested.”
“He’s in the back,” a young woman about my age said.
With the go-ahead to keep walking through a stranger’s house, I walked through the living room, down a hallway until I came to the first open door on the right. Inside was a very large and very nude man.
“Here’s your meal,” I said, not at all sure how I was supposed to respond in said situation (it, and maps, weren’t covered in the volunteer training), especially when he didn’t seem bothered by the fact that I’d found him naked. (We WASPs generally show great shame when caught without clothes on, so you can see how I would be confused.) I dropped the bag of food on a chair near the bed and high-tailed it out of there.
“How was it?” my friend said when I got back to the car.
“Naked,” I said. From then on, we agreed to go into all homes together.
A week or so later, we finally found our way to yet another house where we were directed to another back room. This time, we found a naked woman sitting straight up in bed.
“We have lunch,” my friend said.
“You seen my kids?” she said.
“Your kids?” my friend said.
“I think they’re out back. Go look.”
My friend (again, I suspect her motives were purer than mine) handed me the bag of food we had and went outside to start yelling for this woman’s children. While she was being a saint, I stared at the walls of the room I was in saying, “Would you like me to get your lunch out for you?” which was only met with, “I want to know where my kids are.”
At no time during this “conversation” did she ever try to cover herself or find clothes.
At the end of that day, I was pretty sure we had to talk to the volunteer coordinator. Only a month in, I was near burn-out level.
“You found a naked one,” she said, shaking her head almost in anticipation of my concerns. “We just have some patients that won’t wear clothes.”
Eventually, we didn’t get very many calls to deliver meals (shocking, I know) and soccer season started, so our tenure as volunteers came to an end. However, one of my most vivid memories of being lost is sailing through the red light where 5th Avenue South divides – one side headed to Eastwood and the other to Woodlawn – with my hands in the air. “Where on earth are we?”
I had no idea what a common part of town I was in or how close that major thoroughfare was to my own home, downtown and many, many businesses. I was just a tired, lost 16-year-old that really wanted a route with more clothed people on it.
Sometimes it can be hard to believe that 15 years later, I live less than a mile from the very same intersection and drive through it at least three or four times per week. (It's a necessary part of my many, many trips to Home Depot.)
I’d like to say I’ve learned a lot in that time, but I think the truth is that the most important info I’ve picked up along the way is that there is a light there, and it’s better to go on your way once it’s turned green.
Storm Damage And Sequin Shoes
We had quite the storm here in Birmingham on Sunday night. I, of course, was catching up on Friday's Medium while the SO was away, when I heard pounding against the side of the house that sounded like an invading army wanted in. In actuality, it was hail.
Hail rained down on the house like I haven't seen in years. (It looked like someone had taken garbage cans full of that rabbit pellet ice and dumped it all over the yard and driveway.) It was one of the loudest storms I can remember.
The dogs stuck pretty close to me, but other than that, they seemed to be handling the stress OK. However, when I went to the back room of the house to look for Kitty Cat Jones (he knows how to use the dog door), I realized he had not taken refuge from the storm, and I was going to have to go out there.
In my storm gear of fitflops and a hoodie, I stepped on to the front porch -- which is the same exact moment that Kitty Cat Jones shot past me. (I went out there to rescue him, and he responded by running to and past me because that's just the kind of cat that I have.) And, when he ran away from he, did he go to hide under the car or some other safe spot? Of course not. He went straight for the wooded area next to the house, and I spent some quality time in the bushes looking for him.
While I was outside, I was also able to observe the river of trash and leaves that the street had become. Water rushed down the street, carrying anything even remotely close to the curb with it.
Once I retrieved Kitty Cat Jones, I went back inside to dry him off and let him rest. Then, I waited for the rest of the storm to pass and went to bed. (I am paranoid about tornadoes and needed to make sure that I was not going to have to put all of the animals and myself in the bath tub with a mattress over us before tempting fate by going to sleep.)
On Monday, I learned why this storm was probably the loudest one I can remember. While hail was assaulting the house and I went in search of a cat, the house next door was collapsing. Collapsing.
The house next door was abandoned and pretty much stripped down to its frame. There were remnants of interior walls, but not too much else. However, it's still hard to believe that the storm itself was strong enough to blow the thing down.
References to The Three Little Pigs aside, when the SO and I went over to check out the damage on Monday night, I couldn't help but check for red sequin shoes or some other sign that the Wicked Witch of the East had been there.
In Which Laurel Learns That Not Everyone Will Extend Her A Line Of Credit
We all have our low moments financially. (At least, I assume we all do. If you've never had even the slightest embarrassment caused by money, you're probably not reading this blog anyway. I don't know what an only-recently-underemployed Hyundai owner would really have to offer you.)
There's the first time you forget your wallet. "I'm sure it's here somewhere," you say, while standing at the register rummaging through a bag that contains old receipts, gum, lipstick, mace, ticket stubs, perfume samples, an emery board ... everything but your wallet, any cash or even a spare credit card that might get you out of the store with your purchases. Also, this will never happen when there are not at least three people in line behind you, one of which is an impatient mother with a screaming child and another of which is a large man who thinks his sighing alone will make you give up the ghost.
But, at least when you only forget your wallet (because you might have forgotten to pick it up from beside the computer where you left it while you were online shopping, but you were already late because you needed to see the end of Law & Order: SVU even though you'd watched the episode before but still had no memory of the ending and your hands were already full with a Diet Coke and your car keys, but whatever), you seem absent-minded.
When the credit card is declined, it ranks a little higher on the humiliation scale.
"Do you think you could run it just one more time?" you say. "I'm sure it's just the machine."
"You know, I was definitely near something really magnetic not that long ago. Maybe you need to enter the number manually."
"How about this one?"
I'll never forget the first time I had to walk out of a Target during my sophomore year of college because there just wasn't a way to pay for all of the seasonal decor and hair products I was positive I needed to survive. (At least, not a means of payment that came from any U.S.-backed financial institution.)
When you have to get out of line because of this kind of financial embarrassment, there will still be at least three people in line behind you, but they'll mostly just offer pity. In this situation, it's the clerk that tends to hate you for your perceived denial and holding up her line.
But, when it comes to shopping and financial shame, I still can't remember ever being as embarrassed as I was the first year after I graduated college.
Living in a nice place for the first time (despite some minor concerns about the surroundings in my at-the-beginning-of-gentrification neighborhood), I headed to the mall for a new slipcover, so that my love seat would match the sofa in the living room. (A living room with a fireplace by the way. I felt like I was on top of the world.)
After picking out my navy slipcover (all the better to hide beer stains, I was still young after all), I proceeded to the register.
"Would you like to save 15% on your purchase today by applying for an in-store credit card?"
As I was prone to say in those days -- and as my former credit report with Victoria's Secret, Limited, Lerner and Banana Republic cards, in addition to a couple of Amexs and a Mastercard prove -- I didn't even hesitate. "I'd love to," I said. "What do I need to do?"
I filled out the form, handed over my info and waited to hear my total announced minus the nine whole dollars this decision was going to save me.
I waited for awhile.
"I'm sorry, Miss," the clerk said. "It looks like we can't offer you a credit card today. Is there another way you'd like to pay?"
I handed over my Visa, took my bag and left the store quickly. I no longer felt wanted there.
You see, there's one thing to be said for not getting a credit line increase. There's another to be said for being turned down at Neiman Marcus or Saks. Even Macy's is somewhat respectable. But, I never, never thought that J.C. Penney wouldn't want me as a card-carrying member of their club.
Do you even know anyone with a J.C. Penney card? Of course you don't. No one shops there. How had they earned the right to turn me down? I was a Georgetown grad with a title that included "Assistant Director" in it; didn't they know I was going places?
In the years since, I've curbed my spending ways (largely out of necessity, but also partly due to the brilliant creation of my fake husband), and I have a credit score that is respectable. But, I still can't go near a J.C. Penney without feeling slightly inferior.
So, while my original rejection by Penney's did seem beyond cruel, I suppose it's kind of a blessing in hindsight. After all, who actually does shop at J.C. Penney? If it had been Anthropologie or Urban Outfitters, I probably wouldn't have ever recovered.
The French Connection
2003 was a rough year for me, and it had nothing to do with a boyfriend or a job or even poor fashion choices I'm forced to relive in tagged Facebook photos. 2003 was particularly rough because of our feud with the French.
You see, while as an adult I can't say I really have strong feelings about the French in any way, shape or form, being forced to order "freedom fries" did remind me of my desperate childhood obsession with the French. (Did we go so far as to call it "freedom kissing"? I'm just curious.) And while I shouldn't have cared anymore, the little girl in me really, really wanted to make up with our beret-creating European neighbors.
When I was little, I wanted to be an actress, a lawyer and French. The first two were going to require more education and resources than I had access to at the time, but I figured the latter might be something I could actually work towards.
I knew there wasn’t much I could do about actually being French in the present, having been born in Alabama and all, but I was willing to settle for French ancestry. Also, after the disappointment of learning that my middle name was not actually "Fame," I figured Fain might be able to work for me in other ways.
“What are we?” I asked my mother one day. I was hard at work on a first grade family tree project, and she was trying to get dinner ready.
“We are a family,” she said.
Not what I was hoping for. “No,” I said. “Where did we come from?”
“Montgomery,” she said, continuing to devote her attention to pork chops or something similar.
“No,” I said, “before that?”
“Troy.”
This was not going well. “No,” I said. “What countries did we come from before that?”
“Our ancestors? Is that what you’re asking about?”
I nodded, wondering if I would ever get this project done. Even at six, my mother and I had a history of communication problems. At four, I asked her how it was possible that God made the world in seven days if dinosaurs were around for so long, but there weren’t people when there were dinosaurs. She told me that Adam and Eve had dinosaurs as pets, but when they got kicked out of Eden, the dinosaurs became extinct. This might have worked out OK until I could advance further in school and learn about the Big Bang theory, evolution v. creation, etc., except for an incredibly embarrassing Sunday school incident when my drawing of Paradise included Eve walking a triceratops.
“Scotland, I think,” she said, still struggling with my questions. “But Mills is definitely English. I'd focus your project on Great Britain.”
“What about, oh, I don’t know…” I said, trying to seem as if this thought had just occurred to me, "France?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Isn’t it possible anyone in our family came from France? Maybe one of those Scottish people married someone from France?”
“I don’t think so, Honey. Could you set the table?”
“Couldn’t ‘Fain’ be French?” I said. They did start with the same letter after all.
“I really don’t think so,” she answered. “But I suppose you never know. Do you want to call your grandmother?” I didn't want to make any phone calls, and the truth was, and is, I come from a long line of WASPs, and there's very little that can be done about it.
So, instead of preparing a project about my brilliant French ancestors, I had to settle for pretending to be French. I couldn’t imagine anything better than being part of a long line of people with accents and great clothes. After all, they had an Eiffel Tower, restaurants called cafes, and they were too good for water – only coffee and wine for the French.
When I had tea parties with my stuffed animals, we only spoke in French. And, we ate pretend croissants rather than muffins or cupcakes. Of course, we didn’t actually speak French; I simply spoke in a long string of nonsense syllables that I substituted for a foreign language, but it was enough for me. (Although, I was pretty jealous of every single kid in my class who got to present a family tree that involved French ancestors.)
Within a few weeks of my family tree work and the made-up language gatherings, I'd moved on to other pursuits -- begging for a kitten, trying to finish The Boxcar Children before the rest of the kids in my class, convincing my parents I deserved a later bedtime because of my incredible maturity -- and that desire to be French was buried somewhere far beneath a love of Jem and the Holograms and a need to get the attention of my elementary school crush. I went on with my life, and I even survived that pesky 2003 international disagreement.
But, every so often, my little Francophile does rear its ugly head.
A few years ago, my sister and I were riding in the care discussing our extreme WASP-iness.
"Being Scottish works for me," I said. "We gave the world Scoth and bold plaids. You're welcome Universe."
"Yeah," she said, "but I don't think we're really completely 100% WASP."
"Rachael," I said, "our entire family tree is Scottish, English and Irish. We're Episcopalean, and you and Sarah are the only people in the family capable of tanning."
"I'm not sure," she said. "What about 'Fain.' I'm pretty sure that one's French."
Where had that kind of conviction been 20 years before when I really needed it?